Saturday, February 19, 2005

komputer krap

So IÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢m writing this entry from my office, on my pocket pc thingy. I've decided to skip getting out the laptop, at least for now, because IÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢ve been smacked for having it connected to the local network. Apparently that is a big no-no.

It's just more of the same backwardness at a bullshit institution that would prefer to live in the dark ages.

The apparent issue is supposed to be "security."

In the name of security, our information technology department has been so kind as to disable the cd-rom drive on a set of classroom computers used for my statistics class.

The stupidity, however, is that the instructor requires that we use the textbook-provided cd-rom in class. With disabled drives, however, that makes life difficult. I didnÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢t stick around for the last class because the instructor wasnÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢t there, but apparently some of the software weÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢re supposed to be using has ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â‚¬Å“expired,ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬? and so is, of course, unusable.

IÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢ve talked about how, a couple of semesters ago, they had a wireless network on top of the library that covered the entire campus. They took it down because students had the temerity to use it. Of course, if they had taken the time to do some basic security work (assuming they didnÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢t want the equipment used by students), they could have made the thing inaccessible to unauthorized users. Instead, they took it down completely.

Monday night I went to the statistics class. TheyÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢ve disabled the single class login for all the Windows 2000 computers, and instead gone to individual student logins. This is all well and good, but mine doesnÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢t work, and of course, after 5pm (class starts at 6pm) nobody is available to help if thereÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢s a problem with your account.

My account, of course, does not work. Because all work is done on the computer, I was completely unable to do any work at all. The instructor (who spends more of her time telling stupid people what to click on in Microsoft Excel) had no solution, and so I sat there for a while.

I finally broke out my laptop and did it that way. But because the school is so backwards, I was of course unable to print my work (required for the course). If they donÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢t get this unfucked, I very well may fail the class.

I fail to understand how an ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â‚¬Å“institution of higher learningÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬? can go on this. ItÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚Â¢s just fucking bizarre.